


I'm Negan

by LeathernLaces



Series: Polaroids [6]
Category: The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beth Greene Lives, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Character Death, Other, POV Beth Greene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 22:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeathernLaces/pseuds/LeathernLaces
Summary: Beth comes face to face with Negan and the Saviors for the first time.





	I'm Negan

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading this, there's a chance you are following Way Down We Go. If you follow WDWG there's a chance that you're wondering why I am updating this fic while WDWG hasn't seen new content in months. I have not abandoned WDWG, I'd like to make that much known. I have every intention of continuing the story. The lack of updates are the result of a slew of life changes and problems. After all this time life is finally settling down and things are going much better for me. I am working on Chapter 9 and hoping to have it up soon!

“Hi, I’m Negan.”

 

Negan.

 

How many times had she heard that name in the past few hours? That’s how long they had been there, waiting in a line on their knees. Hours before the old RV had shown up. She didn’t know what she was expecting. The way his people had talked about him, she doesn’t know what she had expected. A king maybe, with a sceptre and a crown. He doesn’t have either of those, but he does have a shiny leather jacket. A leather jacket, an ascot, and a barbed wire bat. On their own they wouldn’t have been all that unnerving. Well, maybe the bat would have been. Together? With that smile?

  
  


She can’t settle the shudders that wrack her body. It isn’t just her arm. It’s everything. Every part of her is telling her to go – to run as far and as fast as she can. Her head might be screwed up, her wrist might still be in a heavy plaster cast, but her feet work just fine. She could run, but she doesn’t.

  
  


He’s walking up and down the line talking about how they just had to go and make this difficult. How he’d hoped, really hoped to meet them on better terms. How they could help each other out, they could work for him and they could have everything, every fucking thing under the sun. They could be a part of society again. They just had to hand over the supplies.

  
  


That hadn’t worked the first time. Six had come to collect and only five had left. “But before we shake on it. We’ve got business to take care of. See, one of your people killed one of my people. I will not stand for that shit. That shit is not going unanswered.”

  
  


Beth flinches as his words carry into the night.

  
  


“Who killed my man?”

  
  


Edwards. He hadn’t meant to. He’s not strong enough for that, he’s not a killer. He doesn’t even like taking care of those things – the dead. The man had been getting ready to take a old garbage bag full of pain killers and antibiotics when Edwards had shoved the scalpel into the side of his neck. They hadn’t been alone, one of the officers had been at the front of the bus waiting for Negan’s man to collect. He pulled that scalpel out and the blood just  _ flowed _ .

  
  


That apparently, had been the last straw. The other two put a call on the radio in between shouts and threats of death.

  
  


“Do not make me fucking ask you again.”

  
  


He’s walking up and down the line, twirling the bat on his shoulders. She can see Edwards three people down. Can see that look on his face. He’s not so stupid, is he? He can’t kill – not the like the rest of them. It had been his fault. Was honesty the best policy here?

  
  


Beth quickly bows her head again as Negan pauses in front of her. “What about you, sweetheart?” He doesn’t sound mad – not at all. In fact if anything there’s a sickening sweetness to his voice. As if that might make her feel more inclined to give him what he wants. “Aw come on, darling. You just point and we can call it a night. I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”

  
  


“She might not understand you.” Edwards voice pipes up down the line. What the fuck is he doing? “ Traumatic brain injury. She’s not all there, mentally.”

  
  


What the fuck is he doing?

  
  


There’s a pricking of pain on the underside of her chin as her head is being tilted back by the bat. Lucille. That’s what he’d called it. Called her. “First off. Did I fucking ask you, Doc?” She doesn’t want to look at him but she can’t help it. He’s making her. “Second, I’m pretty sure she fucking understands me. Look at this face. She fucking gets it.”

  
  


It’s Edwards. But she can’t say Edwards. He’s the only doctor, her sole care taker. He administers the medication, he makes sure she gets enough to eat. He had shown her how to write again, helped her when she stumbled on words. She’s still too broken, too messed up. If Edwards dies she’s got nothing.

  
  


A voice in her head is screaming not to move but she can’t help it. He’s just standing there with that wolfish grin. Would he be stupid enough to kill a doctor? Or did he have a bunch of them back wherever the hell he came from?

  
  


“Shepherd.”

  
  


They’d been quiet to that point, the rest of the group. Death threats made for excellent crowd control but this does it. Edwards is saying her name, admonishing her. The others are muttering, cursing. The panic is rising.

  
  


Shepherd is beside her. Shepherd is letting out a rushed chorus of ‘No! It wasn’t me!’ but for the sake of this. It had to be. She had been on the bus with them. She had rushed to see just what the hell Edwards had done, she had blood on her hands. “I’m guessin’ that you’re Shepherd then, huh?”

  
  


“Get her back in line!” Negan barks out. Shepherd had moved, as if she could somehow escape the fate so clearly set out for her.

  
  


“Are you sure about that, sweetheart?”

  
  


She’s never been more sure about anything in her life.

  
  


It hurts but she nods, willingly pressing her skin further against the metal that’s piercing into her skin. “She was on the bus, Boss. Came out with blood all over her.”  On of his henchmen, some incredibly unsettling man with a mustache chimes in. Finally he pulls Lucille away. He gives the bat a little swing, as if he’s warming up for something. Edwards had too, but it would be so easy to say that he had been trying to help, trying to save the man. That was his job after all. 

 

The expression on his face is nothing short of thoughtful. He stay in front of them. He walks the line one more time. He doesn’t say anything, he just walks. When he finally comes back to Shepherd he doesn’t even stop, at least it doesn’t look like it. He just lifts Lucille high and lets her fly. 

 

There’s screaming and crying. She can feel something warm and wet running down her pant leg. For a second she looks down, confused. As if the fact that she had just pissed herself was the biggest problem. It doesn’t even click right away what’s happening right beside her. Not until she hears a second sickening _whack_ resonate through her own skull. 

  
  


Then she looks. 

 

She’s crying. Not for Shepherd, more out of fear than anything else. She had no connection to the woman. Barely knew her, barely interacted with her. It was better that way, easier to offer her up. Easy to make it convincing.The gore is something she isn’t used to. Not with a living person. Half of her skull is caved in. There’s stringy bits of hair and skin that are stuck to the barbed wire now. She falls face first to the ground almost immediately - Beth isn’t sure whether or not she’s dead. That has to be what he’s going for, otherwise why would he do that? Bash her skull in? He wanted workers, that would just be counter productive. 

  
  


It feels surreal. Like something out of one of those books Edwards had gotten for her. She’s crying and throwing up as he carries on. Negan spills Amanda Shepherd’s brains while she empties the contents of her own stomach all over the gravel. Her retching mingling with the cries, curses, and sickening squelching from the bat. 

 

When Beth looks again there isn’t a head left anymore. There’s nothing, just a bloody puddle. Satisfied with his work Negan reels back, swinging Lucille at his side. There’s a warm spattering of  _ something _ that hits her chin which earns a startling yelp from her, not that anyone seems to notice. Nobody seems to care about her. The collective attention is stuck on what was left of Shephed, and the smiling man with the bat.

 

“Now I am a reasonable fucking guy. Isn’t that right?” He lifts both of his arms at his sides, turning towards his people. There’s a couple hoots and a disjointed chorus of ‘that’s right’, which he looks pleased with. “You took one of mine, I take one of yours. We’re even now, it’s  _ all _ good. Since we’ve got this nastiness out of the way I think it’s time we talk business.” Negan gives Lucille a little shake. The sight of bits of Shepherd sliding off of the bat and hitting the gravel makes her heave. “I’m rebuilding society, we’re putting shit right. I want you all to come and work for me. All of you. I’ve gotta warn you - no is not the appropriate answer here.”

  
  


\----

  
  


No one turns down the offer. No one is that stupid. No one wants to meet the same fate as their colleague. They’re herded into two seperate vans. She and Edwards are thrown in with Negan at his request. Says that she earned a more comfortable ride, and he’s curious. Spends most of the ride back talking to Edwards about her, like she’s not even there. 

 

He asks all sorts of questions. What sort of brain injury she had, whether or not it had happened before the world went to shit. He catches her face in the rearview mirror once or twice and he’s all smiles. It doesn’t feel friendly. It makes her skin crawl more than anything, and if she had anything left in her stomach she would have unloaded it all over the back of the van.

 

“How old is she?”

 

Negan just keeps talking. About her, mostly about her. She tones it out after awhile, he drones on but all she can concentrate on is the sound of the wind whipping against the panels. The adrenaline is fading fast, and despite her best efforts she begins to slump, her eyelids growing heavy.

 

She falls asleep to the sound of wind and Negan’s voice. “Don’t worry, Doc. We’ll take good care of you, both of you. ” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Even before she was a Savior, Beth was a survivor.


End file.
